


Terra Da Fraternidade

by Chanter



Category: Band of Brothers, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Bittersweet, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Episode: S1E06 Bastogne, Gen, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, Historical Hetalia, Human and country names used, Probable Historical Inaccuracy, References To Historical Racism, Wartime Medicine, World War II, aid workers, ambulance crews, awesome Gene Roe, awesome George Luz, direct references to canon, nations under cover, nongraphic references to blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chanter/pseuds/Chanter
Summary: "Easy six," that voice is yelling in the middle distance, in English.  "Easy six, Easy red six!"  It lances Anne like the joyful noise it ain't.While in the Ardennes, Rhode Island and Portugal catch a glimpse of someone dear to both of them.
Relationships: Portugal (Hetalia) & George Luz, Rhode Island (Hetalia) & George Luz, Rhode Island (Hetalia) & Portugal (Hetalia)
Kudos: 3





	Terra Da Fraternidade

They're in as close to the ragged edge as they and any of their fellows dare to get, between the shelling, the small (but ain't that so very relative) weapons fire that goes off every time Jerry thinks he spots an Ally, the understandably skittish Americans huddling with fingers close to their own triggers on this side of the lines, and the bare, bitter necessity of keeping their own hides intact for the duration. Portugal--he's Afonso almost exclusively now, and so far, Anne's managed to pass her few slip-ups in that direction as friendly ribbing--is at the wheel this time. Anne herself nearly hits the floor as he slams the ambulance into reverse, tires whining on frozen gravel and mud, and jolts them to a stop. She doesn't cuss him out; there's no time. 

Beside and a little behind them, she can see Congo--damn it, call him Jean-Jacques, you fool, do you wanna get caught?--bailing out the door of another vehicle and almost immediately seizing the near end of a ready stretcher. The paratrooper medic lending a hand on the far side is unfamiliar, but Anne hasn't got time to take note of the details of his face, his expressions, beyond a glimpse of wise dark eyes and an utter lack of negative reaction to seeing a black man as any kind of an aid worker. As it is, he's just about obscured from view as he and Jean-Jacques (where the hell is Congo's partner?) lift their charge in perfect time, clockwork, and after that Anne's not looking. She's got her own job to be doing. 

She and Charles--hey, she didn't mess his name up and call him Massachusetts, how about that?--are nearly finished settling their own mercifully sedated casualty in place and preparing to haul multiple asses for relative safety when she hears someone shout. Not that a shout is anything even close to unfamiliar or unexpected, not in all this, but the tambre, the tone of voice, the accent, the sheer proximity pluck the heart of her like guitar strings from the first note. She's not entirely sure how she doesn't go sprawling, half in, half out of the open vehicle door. "Ah--whoa!" 

"Easy six," that voice is yelling in the middle distance, in English. "Easy six, Easy red six!" It lances Anne like the joyful noise it ain't. 

From the driver's seat, foot poised millimeters off the gas and thank God he didn't flinch just then or they'd all be in even deeper shit than they are already, she hears Afonso gasp. It's not quite a yelp, but it's getting there. 

Not much further off, somebody else swears, staccato and scared and feral and sounding remarkably like Betty on a bad day. "Luz! Luz! C'mon!" There's the distinct sound of scuffling, and both men's voices are drowned in the chaos. 

Oh, lord. If that doesn't about do her in. The vague, pervasive throbbing sense of American American American all over the area is one thing, but this. 

Anne scrambles aboard, double time, jerks the door shut behind her and slaps a hand, one-two, against the nearest piece of the bus a blood-smudged palm can reach. She slides forward with sloppy intent when Afonso hits the gas, ends up halfway to the driver's seat and still on the floor, squirms over in place and comes up scrabbling most of what's left of their unused supplies into her lap. Charles is already shielding their passenger, and she'll have to ask him later if that wasn't a fortuitous tip over; at least he appears to have caught himself before squishing the poor guy flatter. And it's not like that man can hear them now, given the two needles tagged onto his jacket, and it's not like she's anywhere close to shirking the job she's here to do - she'll have to hop to the inventory of the gear they've yet to use, and she will do in just a second - but some things demand notice. She's not a state for nothing, y'know. "Mine!" she bawls in the general direction of Afonso's right ear, and it surprises her, later, that she decided to spit the entire thing out in English. Maybe it's the fact that they're bolting for the safe side of largely, at least officially, Anglophone American lines. Maybe it's their passenger, who'd be paler than anybody except maybe Charles even if he weren't currently chalk white under the rip-sleeved, seriously ventilated coat somebody donated to his cause. "Not this guy; I got no idea who our casualty links up with but that fella back there, the radio op callin' HQ--he's mine!" 

"And mine!" Afonso half shouts back, agreement and information all in one, and twists the steering wheel like it's nothing at all. "I'm an older connection to him - he's America's, but I can feel him too, further out." 

Rhode Island can't say she didn't just about know that already. Not without lying like a goddamn rug. Fella's got a name like that, one of her names like that, it's almost definite he has some kind of ancestral link to Afonso. Unless his people go back to Antonio or Joana Valera or somebody else, says the logical part of her, and she can't deny that's true enough, or at least it would be if Afonso hadn't just claimed him both outright and audibly. 

They slew around, hit the potholed road with conviction on the downshift and pick up speed, Congo and his crew rolling hot on their heels. Anne wonders, briefly and inanely, if the human top brass insisted that Jean-Jacque's ambulance crew be all black. Screw the brass, if so. 

They don't tell you, Anne thinks as they barrel straight toward the evacuation point - an aid station turned ad hoc field hospital in a church is one thing, but no small number of these lads need to get properly out of the shit for a while, if not for longer, and if this one didn't he wouldn't be all but insensible in an ambulance right now - how to handle seeing one of your people willingly risking life, limb and God only knows what other parts of body and mind on a literal battlefield when you have no other choice but to turn away. That part of statehood ought to come with a fuckin' manual, as far as she's concerned. Of course she's done it before - it was just as bloody miserable at Monmouth too, and at Yorktown, and at Winchester, and let's not even mention that time while she was working as a nurse in France during the last war, the Great War - but the particular sense of not leaping in beside her own, of even briefly abandoning (you're not abandoning him, you jerk) one of hers, will be a truly singular flavor of wrench until the day her spark goes out. 

"I think one of the fellas back there was Rondell's," Charles calls. "The one who stayed in it, you know? The one who was helping Congo for a minute? Might've been his, might've been Henrietta's - I dunno." There's a pause, something roars over all their heads to burst well above the treeline, and Anne glances back just long enough to see the other New Englander lift their patient's dog tags in one hand, then let them drop. The telltale jangle gets drowned out by their engine, but Charles's voice doesn't. "This guy's Katie's." There's just the edge of humor in what's visible of his face, still half obscured by the far shoulder of the soldier he's protecting. "Better make it count." 

"We're working on that," Portugal answers, and yes, he might be teasing Charles a little in amid the honesty, but he doesn't sound mean about any of it. Anne doesn't contribute, because cracks about whose university football team will kick whose ass seem far away and more, and just turns her face to the gear she's clutching instead. God, she's so damn glad Afonso Adelino is here right now. Screw his bosses' neutrality as much as her and Charles's bosses' top brass. She's so glad he's here for this. 

It'll only occur to her later, once she's out of the ambulance, minus the most recent of the blood spatter and plus a cup of truly terrible coffee that is, at least, lukewarm, that Charles messed up Congo's human name too.

**Author's Note:**

> You bet the medic lending a hand loading an ambulance is Gene. You bet the soldier dragging a valiant Luz to safety is Guarnere. In this 'verse, Rhode Island uses the full human designation Anne Luz Thomas Taormina, hence the reference to a certain sergeant having one of her names. 
> 
> Speaking of names, so people don't get horribly confused: Rondell is Louisiana, Henrietta is Mississippi. Katie is California, Betty is Pennsylvania. Joana Valera is Andorra. 
> 
> The title comes from a song integral to Portugal's Carnation Revolution, which is some thirty years in the future at the time this fic takes place.


End file.
